Tag: corporate governance

CEO group issues commonsense corporate governance principles, version 2.0

A couple of years ago, a group of CEOs of major public companies and institutional investors, including Jamie Dimon, Warren Buffett, Larry Fink and Mary Barra, among others, developed a list of “commonsense corporate governance principles,” designed to generate a constructive dialogue about corporate governance at public companies.  As discussed in a new open letter, the group believes that its principles—along with other sets of principles developed by the Investor Stewardship Group, the Business Roundtable and the World Economic Forum—have become “part of a larger dialogue about the responsibilities and need for constructive engagement of those companies, their boards and their investors.” The group views the discussion as particularly important in light of the “precipitous decline” in the number of public companies, which the group attributes, in large part, to the short-termism of public market participants. In that regard, in its letter, the group endorsed the principles developed by these other groups “as counterweights to unhealthy short-termism,” and revisited its own principles in a new updated Version 2.0. According to the press release, the signatories to Version 2.0 (including a number of well-known new signatories) have committed to apply the principles in their own businesses and call on others to join their ranks.